Yemen Water Crises and its Root Causes

Abdurrahman al-EryaniWater and Environment

Advisor in the Presidential Office

Water crises in YemenThrough out history Yemenis were able to adapt to increasing water scarcity through societal and individual solutions based on seasonal cropping and rain water harvesting through the following.

Managing seasonal rainstorms water, spate and surface runoffs through well developed traditional rules and regulations (Orff) and communally building and maintaining a networks of very appropriate water management structures. The most prominent and least respected is the terracing systems.

More than 90% of Agriculture was rain-fed. Less than ten percent was irrigated from springs (Ghails), permanent wadi runoff, and hand-dug wells using animal power to draw out water.

Makeing the best use of the erratic seasonal monsoonal rain by putting as much as possible in their terraced fields. Each terrace is a small recharge dam.

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Practicing soil cultivation that maximizes the conservation of soil moisture. And use complicated system of cropping pattern that encourages sustainability rather than productivity (it was a matter of survival to prevent total failure of the crops).

Land ownership and land tenure was well developed and most of the agricultural activities where communal.

Till the late 1960’s More or less the Yemenis were living in balance with their ecosystem as subsistent farming communities despite that it was at times very hard living.

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In the early sixty a revaluation took place in the north and in the late sixty the south gain independence.

1.Starting in the early seventies so called integrated rural development projects started focusing on modernization of agriculture focusing on productivity. Introducing:

1. Mechanized agriculture, Tube wells, Diesel pumps, Chemical fertilizers and pesticide.

2. Positive incentives for ground-water irrigated agriculture with subsidized or free technical and material inputs, total ban on imported fruits, vegetables and Qat.

3. Negative incentives for rain fed agriculture with flooding of free or cheap wheat, oils and powdered milk from the west.

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at the same time:Population growth increased very rapidly due to immunization and improved primary health care.

Oil boom in the neighboring Saudi lead to huge shift (more than 30%) of rural workforce out of agriculture.

• This lead to weakening of rain-fed communal agricultural activities which in turn lead to terrace deterioration and wadi agriculture collapsing. Huge deforestation also took place due to rapid socio-economical changes.

• For the first two decades the farmers believed that ground water is limitless and almost free. There was no need for any kind of regulation for the newly found resource.

• Weakening of traditional communal agriculture.

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• Cash crops (Qat, fruits and vegetable farming increased). flood irrigation using ground water became wide spread.

• hundreds of drill rigs were imported to the country leading to a sharp increase in deep water wells. (more than 100,000 tube wells).

• The government and the society failed to set up enforceable regulatory system organizing the utilization of ground water (open access resource)

• Almost all known aquifers are in negative balance.

The situation now

• The rapid rate of ground water development benefited the agricultural sector for now.

• The rapid rate at which Yemen’s aquifers are being exhausted is threatening the sector itself and the nation as a whole.

• More than 60% of all rural conflicts in Yemen are water related.

• The lack of secure bulk water supplies for Yemen’s settlements.

• Low access to safe drinking water of Yemenis .

The situation now• Yemeni cities are growing fast – Sana’a is the third fastest growing city in the

world.

• Major cities are having chronic problems in sourcing water…

• Competition is growing between users at both the local level and between town and rural communities…

• There is no legal and practical framework for securing new supplies or prioritizing use.

• In particular, there is no mechanism for equitable transfer of water from lower value uses such as agriculture to higher value uses in domestic water supply and industries

Steps taken by the government

Government has been aware of these challenges for a number of years, and has taken some significant institutional steps:

creation of NWRA (1996)

enactment of the water law (2002)

setting up of the Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE, 2003)

Passing of the by-laws to the Water Law (2011)

In 2004, MWE prepared the National Water Sector Strategy and

Investment Program 2005-9 (NWSSIP)…

…and an Update for 2009-2015 was prepared in 2008

Yemen’s policy choices• NWSSIP incorporates seven related policy choices which, taken together,

represent Yemen’s approach to solving its water problems: • Priority to safe water and sanitation services but also to sustaining the

rural and agricultural economy, with priority to the poor.

• Government responsibility to provide law, rights and regulation, and to support water management through investment and knowledge.

• All management through a partnership approach

• Decentralization to basin level…

• Stakeholder involvement, notably through water user associations, is seen as the basic building block of water management at the lowest level, with stakeholders responsible (with appropriate support) for self-management and self-regulation at the local level.

• Alignment with traditional practices and with market mechanisms

The need for a partnership approach amongst all stakeholders

Yemen’s water problems are amongst the worst in the world.

Underlying this situation are two key facts:

• it is irrigating farmers who control Yemen’s water resources• • the government’s influence over behavior is limited

Therefore, management approaches have to be cooperative rather than

controlling. Yemen will only succeed in improving water management when:

the entire nation acknowledges the problems

and

all stakeholders cooperate together in a partnership approach

The water Agenda must be one of the issues in the National Dialogue

and any newly representative government must lead the way to

sustainable water resource management